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<font size="-1"><font face="Arial">I find it interesting that First
speaks of "the simplest understanding of Ezra 4:6 without quoting the
verse itself, and the surrounding verses. In this way, the reader is
left with the choice of either looking it up himself, or taking First's
word for it. So in order to make this easier for at least readers of
Areivim, let's have a look.<br>
<br>
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<td><b>4</b> Then the people of the land weakened the hands of
the people of Judah, and harried them while they were building, </td>
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<td><b>5</b> and hired counsellors against them, to frustrate
their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the
reign of Darius king of Persia. </td>
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<td><b>6</b> And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of
his reign, wrote they an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah
and Jerusalem. <b>{S}</b> </td>
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<td><b>7</b> And in the days of Artaxerxes wrote Bishlam,
Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his companions, unto Artaxerxes
king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in the
Aramaic character, and set forth in the Aramaic tongue. <b>{P}</b></td>
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<br>
Copied from Machon Mamre (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt35a04.htm">http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt35a04.htm</a>).<br>
<br>
First appears to be using the same oversimplistic reading methodology
used by advocates of the documentary hypothesis when he says that "The
simplest understanding of Ezra 4:6 and its surrounding verses is that
Achashverosh is the Persian king who reigned after the Daryavesh who
rebuilt
the Temple, but before Artachshasta." In fact, the opposite is true.<br>
<br>
The enemies of the Jews hired counselors against us from the time of
Cyrus through the time of Darius the Persian. Which means that they
*stopped* hiring those counselors after the time of Darius the
Persian. So if those counselors wrote accusations against us during
the reign of Ahasuerus, Ahasuerus *must* have reigned between Cyrus and
Darius.<br>
<br>
Of course, it's possible that it was the enemies themselves who wrote
those accusations, and not the counselors, but if so, it's an entirely
different subject, and the text first tells us about counselors who
were hired from the time of Cyrus to the time of Darius, and then talks
about accusations which were written. If that's so, there's no
chronological order involved. It would be like me saying: "Ron Paul
served as a Congressman from Bill Clinton's presidency through Barack
Obama's presidency. Paul ran for president in 2008." That's
completely true. But reading it the way First is reading Ezra would
suggest that he ran for president *after* Obama's presidency. Which is
factually incorrect.<br>
<br>
That's far from the only problem with First's analysis. He attributes
his contra-Chazal view of Persian history to a number of Jewish
scholars purely on the basis of them agreeing that the name
Achashveirosh and the name Xerxes are the same. But that's a truism
that I don't think anyone disagrees with. It doesn't mean that
Achashveirosh/Xerxes reigned *after* Bayit Sheni was built. It's been
many years since I read R' Avigdor Miller's history series, but I'm
willing to assert that he would have been greatly offended by First's
suggestion that he agreed with the Greek version of history and
disagreed with the Jewish one.<br>
<br>
Lisa<br>
<br>
<br>
On 2/21/2013 8:37 AM, Eli Turkel wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAGDtJ1E1Tm90xBwMX0kZ5aBg+jrYg-Nu9WhH6QQVXn1a9aUX8g@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Given that Lisa and I are problem boring most of the
readers with our discussion of Persian history I only wish to point out
the latest seforim blog
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://seforim.blogspot.co.il/">http://seforim.blogspot.co.il/</a></div>
<div>
<div
style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: center;"><b>Identifying
Achashverosh
and
Esther in Secular Sources </b></div>
<div
style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>By Mitchell First </b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><br>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">He also concludes that Achashverosh is
Xerxes in part based on</div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><br>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;">"The
simplest
understanding
of Ezra 4:6 and its surrounding verses is that
Achashverosh is the Persian king who reigned after the Daryavesh who
rebuilt the Temple, </span><span style="text-align: justify;">but
before Artachshasta."</span><br>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;">Hence
the
order
of kings as seen in Tanach is</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;">Darius</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;">Xerxes
(Achasverosh)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;">Artaxeres
(Artachashta)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;">He
also recognizes that this is not in accordance with Chazal who assume
that Achasverosh is before Darius</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;">As
previously pointed out a difference is whether Purim occurred before or
after the rebuilding of the Temple</span></div>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
<div dir="ltr"><font color="#000099"
face="'comic sans ms', sans-serif">Eli Turkel</font></div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
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